Key Summary
- The survey found that four in 10 pharmacies in Wales were not profitable in 2025, increasing the risk of closures.
- 33 per cent of pharmacies were unable to pay their wholesaler on time or in full at some point last year.
- No pharmacy surveyed by the NPA had sufficient funding to deliver their core services, as set out by their contact with NHS Wales.
The survey also found that four in 10 pharmacies in Wales were not profitable in 2025, increasing the risk of closures amid stagnant funding and increasing costs.
The NPA has warned that pharmacies in Wales have been left ‘clinging on by their fingertips’ and called on the Welsh Government to provide pharmacies with an urgent stabilisation payment, similar to what has been offered to GPs.
Around 90 per cent of an average pharmacy’s income in Wales is from delivering NHS services, including providing vital medication to patients and vaccination campaigns, and urgent care to release pressure on GPs and hospitals.
The survey, filled in by over a third of pharmacies in Wales, also found that:- 33 per cent of pharmacies were unable to pay their wholesaler on time or in full at some point last year.
- No pharmacy surveyed by the NPA had sufficient funding to deliver core services, as set out by their contact with NHS Wales.
- 89 per cent of pharmacies have stopped offering some services last year or started charging for them.
- Only 4 per cent felt confident they were in a financial position to be able to support the Welsh Government's Presgripsiwn Newydd (A New Prescription), which aims to expand pharmacies' role to deliver more services to patients.
The NPA, which represents independent community pharmacies in Wales and across the UK, has urged the government to increase investment in community pharmacy or risk the Welsh Government’s New Prescription service ‘going up in smoke’.
Over the last five years, 32 pharmacies have permanently shut in Wales, and the NPA has warned the government that pharmacies are sounding the alarm over further losses of services to patients without action.
David Thomas, Welsh Board member for the National Pharmacy Association, said, “These shocking findings should sound major alarm bells to the Welsh government and will understandably cause concern to patients who depend on their local pharmacy.
“It is simply unsustainable and unfair to expect individual pharmacy owners to remortgage their house and dip into their pension pot to subsidise the cost of prescriptions and to keep their doors open for their patients."
Russell Goodway, chief executive at Community Pharmacy Wales, the organisation representing all community pharmacy owners in Wales, said: “The findings of this poll closely mirror our own evidence and reinforce the very real financial pressures currently facing community pharmacies across Wales, regardless of size or ownership model.
"Community Pharmacy Wales has been in ongoing dialogue with the Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care since before Christmas, seeking to secure a recurring stabilisation payment.
"Such support is essential to prevent further deterioration and to safeguard the sustainability of the sector. We will continue to make a strong and evidence-based case for the additional resources that are urgently needed.”
